Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.

Everything is an open book. I don’t speak on other people’s hardship, but if it happened in my life or something that has been an experience on my particular journey, I’m going to talk about it. That’s what my fan base appreciates the most. I’m universal. You can relate to the things I say or that I go through.

If I had chosen the populist course, it would have been a breach of the trust placed in me by the people.

If there is only one thing in my life that I am proud of, it’s that I’ve never been a kept woman.

It’s easy to forget who you are.

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

I had the classic 40 meltdown. I did. It’s embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.

Naturally, everybody has certain things they wish they hadn’t done in life. They wish they hadn’t kicked their dog when they were ten or something.

I definitely connected to the fact that life gets out of control and you end up doing things and wishing you were doing other things instead.

We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.

Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.

Why does your mind conform? Have you ever asked? Are you aware that you are conforming to a pattern? It doesn’t matter what that pattern is, whether you have established a pattern for yourself or it has been established for you.

I knew ‚Crenshaw‘ had elevated me and distinguished me.

I know of only one duty, and that is to love.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.

I have discovered that just because we grow weaker physically as we age, it doesn’t mean that we must grow weaker spiritually.

If you sit there and have that mentality of ‚triple down on what you’re good at,‘ you’re never going to grow. You’re always going to stay the same.

An individual step in character training is to put responsibility on the individual.

Things won’t get better dwelling on the past. Accept what has happened. Then move forward.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

I don’t feel too much pressure. I only see an opportunity.

Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.

To be ashamed of one’s immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one’s morality.

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

I admire people who destroy themselves.

Thoughts are mental energy; they’re the currency that you have to attract what you desire. Learn to stop spending that currency on thoughts you don’t want.

Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive.

I pray while driving. I pray while working, and while relaxing.

I don’t write policy for my government.

God made you a masterpiece – be blessed, secure, disciplined and equipped.

Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse.

People tend to play in their comfort zone, so the best things are achieved in a state of surprise, actually.

When we see persons of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see persons of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

The book you don’t read won’t help.

There are certain things that bother me and certain things that don’t. Personal attacks on me? I think I’m just so used to it.

Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

Because in a split second, it’s gone.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

I didn’t always have 14,000 people wanting to hang out with me on a Saturday night.

I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.

I’ve experienced great things, I’ve experienced great tragedies. I’ve done almost everything I could possibly ever imagine doing, but I just know that there’s more.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated till it attains years of discretion.

What I believe unites the people of this nation, regardless of race or region or party, young or old, rich or poor, is the simple, profound belief in opportunity for all – the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.

It’s not easy being young. It’s hard to know what to do.